Irken Kaulen
by Oblong features
Summary: A rewrite of an old, somewhat popular fic about the Tallest and Zim, and a pretty little Hanlioid girl that ties them together. Red/OC, and expect some ZaGR.
1. Prologue

**Hey guys! I wrote a story a while ago, and by a while ago I mean about 3-4 years ago, with an OC named Ash. I decided I was going to re-write the fic with some edits (making it less dramatic, more fun, etc). When I first wrote the fic way back when I had no concept of "Mary Sues" so Ash was utterly terrible, and I'll have to take some time to find her a personality. So this little author's opening is actually a bit of a warning as well: Ash may seem a little Mary Sue-ish at first, because that's the way I originally made her, but this problem will be fixed posthaste. So if you're someone that likes to go trolling around, commenting on how everyone's fics have Mary Sues in them, try not to suck the marrow from this one. I'll fix the problem as soon and as tactfully as I can. Until then… try to put up with it Lol and thank you for reading.**

**On a side note, thanks for the positive encouragement on my last songfic-one-shot "Canvas". I worked hard and I'm glad you guys liked it :3**

**Now to stop my yammering and get on with the show. Introducing… Irken Kaulen!**

"…Zim, please."

"Whaaaat? I just wanted to—"

"No. No, no, no, no, no, don't even _go_ there, please…"

"But Moooooom!" Zim whined to his non-Irken 'mom'.

"But nothing! Zim, you were not_ invited_ to The Great Assigning, you cannot_ go_ to The Great Assigning…" Ash said, her jaw extended in annoyance and a hand on her head, her docile voice shaking with the unused emotion of frustration.

"But Mom, I—"

"You're not leaving your job. What would the Tallest think?"

"They'd be thrilled to see me!" he chimed with the naivety of a child.

"No they wouldn't. You're not going, end of story."

"But why not? I'm an invader, just like—"

"Zim , honey, you can't leave Foodcourtia. Otherwise I would take you there myself, but…" she was going to tell Zim how he was banished and how he could never, ever go back to Irk because everyone hated him, but she held her tongue. She loved him too much to break his heart like that, and there's not really a way to break that kind of news to someone gently.

"I can leave Foodcourtia, just like this!" And with that he stood up and ran out the front door of Shloogorghs. Ash threw up her hands in exasperation and slammed them on the table as Zim ran away, which was about as much as she was willing to do—she was too tired and too busy to go chasing him all over the galaxy. Before she could take another breath she was approached by her old friend Sizzlorr. He stomped over to her and looked around, puzzled.

"Hey, Ash, where's Zim? I thought he was talking to you," he asked in a friendly tone. Ash sighed and shook her head disdainfully, pointing in the general direction of the door, afraid of divulging too much and getting Zim hurt. Sizzlorr growled and shook his head. The restaurant was too busy to go chasing around a little kid, and Ash just let Zim go like she always did. There was no stopping him when he put his mind to something. And she was frustrated with him anyway; she didn't feel like wasting her time trying to parent a child that didn't want to list. She was tired. Impatient. She wanted to go home and get a good night's sleep and she wanted to see the Tallest. She wanted to give Pur a hug and give Red a kiss and take some medicine for her headache and get a full night's sleep for once. But she couldn't, she knew that. Whatever. Putting whatever she could to the back of her mind, she stood up from the table, left the restaurant and prepared to go finish whatever was on her to-do list and forget about everything that had just happened.


	2. Chapter 1

"You WHAT!"

"I just …let him go."

"That's just the problem! You let him go! And you don't even care! How could you? He'll ruin the whole Assigning!" Pur exclaimed. Ash was communicating with the Tallest via web-camera telecommunication. She was in her little Voot Cruiser, on item number four on her to-do list. Well, not necessarily where she wanted, because she wanted to go home, but she had some things to attend. Home came later.

Ash sighed deeply, meekly, not focusing on Purple's ranting and raving and instead focusing on exiting the Milky Way and taking a right turn at Conventia. "Listen, if you just calm down a little I'm sure you can figure out—,"

"That's just it! You shouldn't make US figure it out! You should have stopped him in the first place! He's not a smeet anymore, you can't just go around letting him so whatever he wants! Be tough! Be mean to him, he can take it! Be-," Purple exclaimed flailing his thin little arms until one came into contact with the head of Ash's fiancée.

"Pur, what the hell!" Red whined.

"Sorry, buddy. Ash just got me fired up," he pointed at the massive Massive screen and waved his hand in dismissal. "I'm gonna go eat food, you guys fix this." Red smiled, which Ash promptly returned, quickly returning to her stopping at a four-way intersection and turning right on a red light.

"Hey," Red said smoothly, like a teenage guy does to a girl at the mall.

"Hi," her voice sounded mousier and smaller, almost more respectful. "I'm on my way to Judgmentia, Tyr got a parking ticket and I have to pick her up. She's only had her pilot's license for two months," Ash said busily, commenting on the fifth youngest of her seven younger siblings. "So I'm a little busy. Can you take care of this mess with Zim? Pur's really angry and I don't have the time to go chase Zim."

"Wait, what stu—," Red started.

"Please, could you do this for me?" Ash looked straight into the webcam, partially coming from a place of true sincerity and partially coming from a place of manipulation. He sighed and cocked his head to the right.

"…alright." Her eyes lit up, the moment he had been waiting for since he decided he was going to say yes.

"Thank you so much! I knew I could count on you!" Her still mousey voice had a quality of true excitement and appreciation. "Oh, I have to go, I'll call you later! I love you!" She blew him a kiss and hung up before Red could open his mouth again. Purple came in the room with a mouthful of donuts, more still on his skinny fingers.

"That girl really knows how to use me," Red sighed, putting his hands on his hips and staring at the blank screen with an Irken logo on it. Purple came up next to him an offered him a donut, an offer he gladly accepted.

"I'm sure she does," Purple snorted. Red chucked Pur in the shoulder playfully. The young men smiled at each other. Really, the situation wasn't so bad—they knew that however pesky Zim was, their response was going to be about twice as colorful.

"Hi Mom!" GIR screamed at the monitor with Ash on it.

"GIR, go away! That's my mom!" Zim huffed, throwing GIR in a corner off-screen somewhere. A crunch was heard, as was a yelp of horror at the death of some taquitos. "Sorry Mom. I called to tell you about the mission, and it is so very neat." Zim smiled proudly, his voice deepening at the end of his sentence in thrill.

"Oh?" Ash was just drifting in her ship now, after dropping off her younger sister to receive a scolding from their father. She stared lovingly at the screen, awaiting the news that he was on a planet of broken glass, or "one of those exploding head planets". She didn't expect much less. "Your base looks very nice."

"It is! Compared to this filthy, disgusting planet! I can smell the dirt from leagues away," he sneered gleefully.

"Leagues are under water, Zim," Ash sighed, a small smile gracing her lips, not visible from the scarf she was wearing around the lower half of her face.

"DO NOT QUESTION ME! Now excuse me, Mommy, but I have much work to do to ensure the annihilation of the human race on this horrible planet… and if I don't hurry I'll be late for school—TOODLES!" Zim shrieked before he cut the transmission. Ash laughed and shook her head. As far as she knew, Zim was raised fine, and she would know, seeing as she raised him herself. She brushed her golden hair off of her shoulder and straightened the top to her black sari. She looked human—human enough, even though she wasn't, she was Hanlioid, a race bred almost specifically for the reason of selling their daughters and profiting tremendously from the wedding dowry. She put in bright green contacts that morning, because she was planning on going out in public, and her naturally maroon eyes signaled her unclean heritage. Green eyes were fine though, so that's what she wore that day. She blinked to make sure they were moist and set her course for the Massive.


	3. Chapter 2

**I think the hardest thing I have ever had to do is finding ways to NOT say "Red said", because it rhymes. Jus' sayin'. You guys should appreciate the amount of toil and trouble I suffer writing fanfictions.**

**Anyway.**

"Ow!" Purple yapped, his head snapping forward. He turned around intolerantly. "How many times have I told you not to flick my head? I bruise easy!"

"Aw, you bruise easy!" Ash said as mockingly as her soft voice allowed, twirling around to face her tall counterpart. "Where's Red?" She looked around quickly, scanning the area with her moist eyes.

"He went to go do something. He'll be here some time." Pur sat down heavily and Ash sat in her 'future husband's' seat next to him. Ash crossed her legs and blinked, taking her time.

"Hey, I was wondering…" She situated her bottom on the seat so she faced Pur more. "How're the girls? I haven't seen them in a few weeks, is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Pur looked unhappy. "They're with their mom for a little bit until the papers go through and I get them permanently. I hate being away from them so much but… it's gonna be worth it." He smiled at Ash in fond memory of his two younger daughters. Ash pitied Purple for the pain of losing a child for so long—she too had felt it and it wasn't pleasant. She smiled back.

"I just hope Flora's not being too bad. What with all the stories the girls tell me about her I hear she can be really-," Ash started, trying to relate.

"Bitchy," Red piped in from the doorway. He walked in, putting a little swagger in his step to impress Ash. "I told Pur not to hook up with her in the first place, you know, I totally called it." Ash hopped out of her seat and bounced over to her fiancée. Wrapping her arms around his almost non-existent neck, Red peeled her scarf down to her neck and their lips locked softly in a greeting. Purple stood by, still missing his girls and feeling a bit lonely.

"Hey," Ash said quietly. There was no need to talk loudly when one's face was an inch from the receiver.

"Hey…" Red spoke methodically in his same teenage-boy tone. Purple coughed to let the two crazy kids know he was still in the room. They whipped around, Ash re-covering her face, and smiled quickly at each other before strolling over to the third. "Wait a second, wait a second," Red interrupted, waving his arms at the young girl he was so desperately in love with, "I should be mad at you!" Ash smiled a little under her scarf, but her eyes retained their big, innocent quality. Finally, they remembered Zim.

"Why?" Ash tucked her hands behind her back and shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, and being a dancer along with a cunning woman, she did this often, so she knew the movement well. Better to start flirting early rather then get to a point where it's needed and it's too late. Honestly, she wasn't a natural deceiver, she was just trying to lighten the mood.

"Zim," the two young men blurted out simultaneously. They shared a small grin before returning to being mad at Ash.

"I didn't see anything in the obituaries, so he didn't _completely_ ruin the Assigning, did he?" Ash shifted her weight and her smile to the left side. Although her mouth was not visible, her cheekbones were high and mighty, dominating the emotion on her face. Red breathed in and out deeply to hide his adoration of her, but Ash could see it working.

"He busted the Assigning and wouldn't leave until he made us give him a planet," Purple said, annoyed.

"I knew it couldn't just have been out of the kindness of your hearts," Ash muttered, raising her eyebrows.

"What?" Red asked. Ash replied with a rather acquitted "What?" of the same nature. The boys brushed it off.

"Ash, you need to keep better control of him. We sent him to the farthest planet away possible just to get rid of him. It's gotten insane. Screwing with him is one thing, but going out of our way to avoid him is another thing entirely," Purple said in a fatherly tone.

"Yeah, and you haven't been helping one bit." Red chimed in. Ash dropped her act and looked ashamed. "You think it's just his nature, like that's just the way he is, but if that's true then he's defective. A defective Irken hasn't been heard of in centuries, so-," Red shrugged his shoulders as Ash interrupted him.

"Are you saying I raised him wrong? Because that's what it sounded like to me." The charm was off, her meekness pushed aside. Ash stood there, a hand on her hip, her weight to the right side, her head cocked to the left, infuriated. "I did absolutely nothing wrong. He's a perfectly good kid, he just has really bad luck." The Tallest helped her finish her sentence. They had heard her talk about Zim like this dozens of times before.

"We just don't want to deal with him anymore. We're not putting the blame on anyone," Red sighed, trying to mediate the situation. Purple sighed after Red ded.

"Yeah. We just don't want him in our faces all the time," he agreed. Ash sighed to complete the triad and finally consented, a look of shameful submission in her false green eyes.

"I'll see what I can do. …I'm sorry he caused you guys so much trouble." Thought Ash loved the boys, she knew when to give up; a large sense of fear came with befriending the two most powerful men in the universe. Red brushed her hair back and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"That's my girl," he said softly again, smiling down at the woman he loved. Their foreheads touched and Ash's Hanlioid equivalent of a heart skipped a beat—she was still slightly afraid of him. A crunch was heard. The romantic moment was broken. Red turned around to see the commotion and Purple reached in the bag for another chip. Ash shook her head and her smile shifted to the right as her weight went left again, her hand reaching for Red's hand.

**Ah, the classic "potato chip ruining the romantic moment" moment. You gotta appreciate it when an author mocks themselves. I try my hardest… every day… *sniff sniff* Comment, rate, watch, five stars, Ebert and Roper, everyone. Thanks!**


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